A Healthy Eating and Active Living Strategy for Australia 2013-2018

HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM 1 HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM POLICY ANALYSIS Name of the student: Name of the university: Author note: NSW Government: Healthy Eating and Active Living Strategy 2013-2018: How well does the plan make a case for health promotion action, including consideration of the burden of illness, determinants of health and the potential impact of health promotion action? One of the plans provided by the World Health Organization that can be followed as one of the effective framework for policy analysis is the “FRAMEWORK

Running head: HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
POLICY ANALYSIS
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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NSW Government: Healthy Eating and Active Living Strategy 2013-2018:
How well does the plan make a case for health promotion action, including consideration of
the burden of illness, determinants of health and the potential impact of health promotion
action?
Living unfit life exposes every individual to various types of chronic health situations in
different individuals of different age groups (Thow et al., 2015). Therefore, keeping bodies fit
and healthy is also important besides being safe from being affected by different germs and
infections causing diseases. Unhealthy body and inactive life may lead to not only obesity but
also makes people exposed to disorders like cardiac disorders, hypertensions, osteoarthritis and
many others (Grembowski, 2015). Therefore, the policy plan had correctly been based on
important rationales that indeed can be important case for health promotion action. The policy
has very well discussed about the burden of the disorder and has helped in understanding the
importance of the implementation of the policy (Borrud et al., 2014). It has provided a statistical
data of the total amount of people in New South Wales suffering for obesity and overweight. It
has also provided information about how within the year 2020 the number of such disorders
would increase. Lack of education is one of the determinants that expose individuals to poor
lifestyle habits, as they do not have the health literacy required to take correct lifestyle choices
(Skocpol, 2016). Therefore, they have taken proper steps to care for the determinants of health
resulting in poor quality life development of community supports for the different under
privilege people, people living with poor socioeconomic background and People of the
indigenous background (Golden et al. 2015). The potential impacts of the health promotion plan
have been well developed by the healthcare professionals and had been provided under the
objectives session. Some of the important impacts are also provided under the highlight section

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(Lupton et al., 2014). An important section called the policy context is also provided by the
policy makers where they have provided a NSW 2021 plan where they have set SMART goals
that specific and accurate for the achievement of the goals of a fit NSW.
How well does the plan reflect strategic frameworks for health promotion action, such as
(but not limited to) those outlined by the World Health Organization?
One of the plans provided by the World Health Organization that can be followed as one of the
effective framework for policy analysis is the “FRAMEWORK FOR COUNTRYWIDE PLANS
OF ACTION FOR HEALTH PROMOTION”. The general framework stated by WHO in this
paper is the preamble, followed by objectives in the paper and then principles of success
(Goestzel et al., 2014). The policy proposed by the NSW governments has provided a clear
objective. The strategies are also prepared based on a comprehensive structure that altogether
refers to the all-important aspects that help in reduction of weight, alternation of lifestyles and
importance of physical activities (Wildasky, 2017). The paper is also having plans for effective
monitoring and evaluation as well under separate headings. There is another section in this
framework called the key considerations. These are the participation of public, private as well as
community sections for the preparation of the plans. Another is adaptability where plans are
responsive to local needs (Blank et al., 2017). The plans have developed strategies which local
environment and community would take based interventions so that local needs are met
(Edelman et al., 2017). Feasibility is also maintained as the strategies that are developed and the
plans that are made would be able to be met within the expected timeframes. Measurability is
also ensured as the evaluation process would help to measure the outcomes. In case of innovation
processes, innovation has been tried to be implemented by increasing the mode of public
transport so that walking trips are increased (Huckvale et al., 2015). Needs assessment has been

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successfully conducted as women of reproductive age, early years of children, children and
young people, adults had been separately studied to obtain the statistics to find out the unhealthy
population in the nation and their requirements to leave better quality lives (Richard & Gauvin,
2017). The five principles of Ottawa charter had been clearly followed with had made the policy
attain all important requirements to be called an effective policy.
How well does the plan reflect underpinning principles and elements of effective health
promotion, such as population reach and using evidence to support its recommendations?
The policy plan has been well established upon important principles with the first one
being following the evidence-based information. They have provided evidences as in the page
number of 27 where they have told that significant weight loss by 5 to 10% is essential in
reduction of the risk of chronic diseases.. They have been referenced well which shows that the
policy is based on information provided by research journals of international fame. Moreover, on
the page 29, it is clearly stated that the concerned authorities in ways by which they can reach the
maximum number of people would take actions and the focus will be on the specific population
where possible. The information that had been provided under “current status” one can see that
in order to make the readers understand the importance of healthy eating and physical activity,
they have put forward important information that are evidence based and at the same time
written in easy language by which the readers can understand (Halpem et al., 2015). The policy
makers have chosen about 66 important evidence bases and most of them are within the last ten
years and hence the information on which the policy is based are highly credible and meet the
requirements (Deandadde et al., 2015). One other example is a strategy direction 1 that states
that although they would be covering whole of the state but special care would be provided to
Sydney metropolitan region; Aboriginal communities; People with a mental illness; and People

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with a disability. Similarly when the strategic direction 2 is also considered, it is also seen that
are developed with particular population to reach for like the Children and young people,
pregnant women, adults and older people; Aboriginal communities; Disadvantaged socio-
economic communities; Regional and remote communities; People from culturally and
linguistically diverse backgrounds and People at risk of type 2 diabetes.
How well does the plan reflect behavior change theories and models to influence change in
individuals and/or organizations?
The policy is quite clear in its approach and this could be well established from the
information provided in the page number 27. The strategies that had been developed were based
mainly on the preventive measures. the policy makers had been seen to be stating that “there is
much to be gained by the prevention of chronic diseases for the individual, the community and
the health system”. It is very important for the population to develop a preventive based
approach in the behavioral modifications, as high amount of effectiveness as well as cost
effectiveness for improvement of the population health is associated with it (Barer et al., 2017).
Therefore, this form of behavioral approach towards development of better help is mainly taken
as the main approach in the study (Desmet et al., 2015). Associate professor Susan Thompson
was seen to state that an environment should be built for people to live, play and work that would
support but their mental as well as physical health. For this, she has stated that getting access to
fresh fruits, vegetables are very important, and this should come from easily accessible local
shops, community garden and nearby farms (Austin et al., 2016). She had also requested the
health and built environment professionals to come and work together to achieve this. This is yet
an example that the thinking procedures of the policy makers who are trying their best to make
the health professionals come in association together to plan strategies making the population

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take up initiatives to prevent themselves from getting affected by the disorders (Langford et al.,
2015). If one takes an in depth analysis of the action plans for each of the four strategic
directions, one can easily see that most of the actions are mainly aimed at altering the behaviors
of populations in ways by which they become more careful about the lifestyle choices and steps
they take for their healthcare (Hawks et al., 2015).
Based on these reflections, and your general critical appraisal of the document, comment
on the overall quality and likely effectiveness of the plan.
From the entire discussion above, it is clearly seen that the policy is of high quality as it
had successfully met all the important points present in the framework provided by WHO.
Moreover, one very interesting thing, is that the language they have used is very simple and is
easily understood by the ordinary citizens. Another very interesting thing is that the policy
makers had clearly established the NSW 2021 where they had set MART goals that indeed
shows the amount of research and planning that had been done to set up the goals. Each of the
actions that had been prepared by the policy makers are distinct and holds clarity (Edelman et al.,
2017). They have equally included all the important stakeholders and have collaboratively
worked together to bring out the best outcomes. The representation of the entire information is
presented in an easy and diagrammatic ways by which people can easily understand the
information and do not get confused. Images, pictures, colors and various other types of things
used in the policy had made it interesting (Baxter et al., 2014). The page namely “United for
change A whole of government solution” contains a detailed amount of information about how
the nation is being affected by the unprecedented levels of overweight and obesity. Therefore,
the policy is highly appreciable as it contains detailed information about what the promotional
plan wants the state to achieve (Valente et al., 2015). When the goals are clear, achieving the

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mission and vision become easier due to its clarity and clear strategies (Niranjan et al., 2017).
The initiating pages of the policy have very well established a very important fact that should be
well understood by every citizen in order to maintain healthy living. It should be well understood
that only living life free from any diseases cannot assure to be a better quality life.

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